Author Archives: Becky Goldsmith

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About Becky Goldsmith

I am a quilt designer/teacher/author, a wife/mother/grandmother, and certified yoga instructor who is searching for balance, strength, and happiness in all things.

Seven Starry Sisters…

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If you receive my newsletter, you have already seen this quilt and read at least part of the story behind it. (FYI: I posted the Seven Starry Sisters ePattern today.)

7Sisters-18

I started this quilt in the early days of Piece O’ Cake… back in the 1990s. In fact, it was so long ago that I drew the pattern by hand!

7Sis-Drawing

My Mom wanted to make a quilt and she offered to applique blocks. I gathered fabric, made the overlay and templates and she got started. And, as sometimes happens, years passed by :-). Every now and then she’d sew on the blocks and then move on to something else that interested her more.

When Mom moved to Texas a few years ago, she gave me the blocks. Most of them were finished, but some were not. Interestingly, she hadn’t appliqued the pieced stars.

7Sis-PiecedStars

My tastes in color and fabric have changed over the years which is not at all surprising. I chose the clearest red and white blocks for the quilt I made and set these aside…

7Sis-QuietStars

And these two blocks have also been set aside. Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose these fabrics!

7Sis-BrightStars

The Seven Sisters is a traditional quilt pattern based on legends that relate to a distinctive star cluster, the Pleiades. The traditional quilt block can be pieced, although it’s a complicated block. There are probably English paper pieces that you can use to hand piece it. I have always thought that it is an easier block to applique.

I cut my blocks in a non-traditional way, with star points hitting the edges of the hexagon on all sides. I added sashing because these blocks were not all exactly the same size, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The sashing adds a terrific spark of color and sets this quilt apart.

I’m sure that I chose blue for my sashing because I found the blocks on the 4th of July. But If I had run across them at Christmas, I might have used green sashing and this quilt would be different but still great fun. Click here if you’d like more info on the Downloadable ePattern.

And, in case you were wondering, Mom was very happy to see this quilt! In fact, the top is now in her living room, waiting for me to find a little time to get it quilted!

7Sisters-18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stand up and fake it if you have to!

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Amy Cuddy‘s TED Talk is a couple of years old but it is still completely relevant. Her research indicates that your posture and body language do more than send signals to others—they influence how we feel about ourselves. So stand up tall, shoulders back, head held high, put a smile on your face and do your thing!

I also listened to Julian Treasure‘s TED Talk titled “How to speak so that people want listen“. The two talks play well together.

 

 

Always looking…

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I am learning to really appreciate the camera in my iPhone. It is usually with me and so I can stop and take quick pics even on my morning walk. Use your imagination and these salvias could instead be green-tipped purple trees in a Dr. Seuss landscape!

PurpSalvia-GreenTips-2

Wouldn’t the colors in this feather, used with the grays in the concrete, be perfect in a quilt?

Feather-MidwayUT-2

On the same morning walk, I noticed this water meter cover. You can’t really tell from the photo, but it was tall, the center part stuck up several inches, which is unusual. I love the mix of colors and textures. It struck me that the bright turquoise on the worn iron cover is the same as the turquoise in my shoes.

WaterMeter-MidwayUT

There are just too many cool things that a person can take a picture of!

 

Seen in Midway…

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There are geothermal springs around Midway. The biggest is the Homestead Crater, which was across the street from the Zermatt Resort where I was staying.

HomesteadCrater-1

In this case the crater is not a dip in the ground, it’s a mounded hill. Apparently the water used to bubble up and out of the crater. The hill was formed by the mineral deposits. Some thoughtful person(s) engineered this crater so that the water flows out of it on one side. On the other side there is a tunnel that takes you to the pool that remains inside the crater.

HomesteadCrater-2

There is still an opening at the top  that lets in light and air. There are lights in the water which is why the water glows in the photo. The water is 95° or so and full of minerals. You can pay a fee to float or scuba dive, or do what I did and just take a look.

I saw several other small craters on my morning walks that were posted “do not enter” but I would not be at all surprised to hear that every now and then someone does get into them.

HomesteadCrater-Not-1

HomesteadCrater-Not-2

There were small streams on the resort property and the water flowing in them was warm—not at all what you’d expect in a mile-high mountain stream!

 

He was inspired!

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I told Jack about Andrew and his sock monkeys, I showed him the pictures, and then I gave him the kit I bought. Well, Jack was ready to make a sock monkey, right then! I did the machine sewing, taught him how to turn the arms and tail inside out, and how to stuff.

I threaded a needle and showed him the basics and he took off. It put a smile on my face :-).

JackSockMonkey-1

He still has an ear, the arms and tail to sew on tonight—Lorna will be there to thread the needle and do the knots. I suspect that it won’t be long before Jack can do that by himself as well.

JackSockMonkey-2

He is already imagining which of his socks would make good monkeys. He has always enjoyed fun socks and has some excellent ones to choose from.

Update: Jack came by last night with his finished monkey!

JackSockMonkey-3

A new quilt show!

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I just returned from Midway, UT, where the very first Small Town Quilt Show – In a big way! was held. Midway is a lovely place; it is only 10 minutes from Park Cities if that helps you to get a fix on it. The event was held at the Zermatt Resort and it’s a place I would happily return to.

I didn’t take pictures of the usual quilt show things because I was too busy either teaching, or shopping, to do that. There was, however, one vendor who had some really fun things made from wool. Yes, I could make these coasters but it was so much nicer to buy them!

woolcoasters

There were some exceedingly cute sock monkeys hanging on the front of the booth (and I wasn’t the only one who thought so). As it turns out they were made by Andrew, the grandson of the lady in charge. Did I get her name? Sigh, I did not. However, the receipt is from Winnie Press. This is Andrew’s very first sock monkey, made when he was 8 or 9…

AndrewsSockMonkey-01 copy copy

He follows his own monkey-making muse, rather than a strict pattern…

AndrewsSockMonkey-02 copy

The monster was my favorite :-).

AndrewsSockMonkey-03 copy

Andrew is older by a couple of years or so now, and still making monkeys. Honestly, he could go into business… there were a lot of us who would have happily bought one of his creations. Instead, I bought a kit for Jack. He’s 6, and probably a bit young for this. Or not!